International Women’s Day

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of International Women’s Day.

Each year, the United Nations declares an overall international theme for women’s day. This year’s theme is “Empower Rural Women—End Hunger and Poverty”. It is right to recognise that giving power to women is one of the most effective ways of ending poverty, but it must be real economic and political power, because when women get close to power, men too often take it back. We saw that in the Arab spring, when brave women who led the early protests were subjected to sexual assault.

Giving power to women ends hunger, because women’s money gets spent on children. Although we expect 1 million more children to be born in Britain over the next decade than in the last, this Government have targeted children. Children are due to pay more than bankers towards dealing with the deficit. Welfare reform, which is trumpeted as a plan to make work pay, is hitting the poorest working families with children, many of whom will lose tax credits worth £3,800 because they are unable to find more working hours. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has found that one in five companies has cut down on hours, whereas only one in 17 has increased them. The Government have not even exempted families where one parent is caring full time for a disabled child from the demand that at least 24 hours are worked to qualify for such tax credits.

At the other end of the pay scale, mothers are due to lose their child benefit. Child benefit replaced the tax allowance because it was recognised that delivering child support to a mother is the best way of reaching children. Soon, Britain will be one of the only countries in the developed world that lacks a universal mechanism whereby people who do not have children contribute to the costs of child rearing through the tax and benefits system.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I am a bit disappointed that this is becoming a political rant, when there is so much to celebrate about women in this country. Does she think it is right that I receive child benefit when I earn £65,000 a year? Will it be in her party’s manifesto at the next election to bring it back?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I am old enough to remember the invention of child benefit. It ended a child tax allowance system that advantaged the richest more. The great thing about child benefit is that it says that all of us are responsible for children. It ought to be universal. It is, in effect, a tax allowance for children. It is quite wrong to suggest that it is a benefit from which richer people should be exempted. Everyone who has children should be responsible for them.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I want to give everyone the opportunity to get in. Although I am happy to take interventions, I think that I should resist so that more Members have a chance to—

[Elizabeth Truss]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have just explained why I am not giving way.

We are told that the proposed universal benefit will make work pay, but for whom? It will end the tradition, built up in the Labour years, of paying family benefits to the main carer in the household, who is usually a woman. Men will be the default recipient. As a result, women and children will get less.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have explained why I am resisting. I want to give more people a chance to make the contribution that they want to make. I think that that is right in this debate. I am talking about the real situation for women today. I would like to be able to celebrate the progress that women have made; I am explaining why I fear the situation is going backwards.

As I was saying, women are paying 70% of the cost of deficit reduction, with £13.2 billion coming from women and £5.7 billion from men. Women are being squeezed out of the labour market. Record numbers of women are jobless. The biggest jump in unemployment has been among older women aged 50 to 64—up by 20,000 in the last quarter. At the same time, unemployment among younger women went down.

We are facing a crisis for this group of older women. They have faced the shock that their pensions are to be deferred and they need to use these crucial years to build up their pensions. However, they will find it hard to find a new job. Often, women are losing jobs in the public sector, where there is a better record on equal pay than in the private sector. That means that women’s snail-like progress towards equal pay risks sliding backwards. Older women are sandwiched between supporting their children, who are staying at home longer, saddled with university debt, because they cannot afford their own housing, and supporting their elderly parents, who are being failed by a health service made increasingly chaotic by Government reform. The next debate will focus on carers, so all I will say is that this Government’s failure to grasp the challenge of care has delegated responsibility for it to the nation’s women, which just is not fair.

If the prospects for women at work and for women’s income are gloomy, what about elsewhere? Everywoman Safe Everywhere, a commission chaired by the former Member of Parliament for Redcar, shows how women have become less safe. There has been a 31% cut in refuges and services that tackle domestic violence. Some 230 women are turned away from a refuge on a typical day. The suggestion that housing benefit will no longer cover the service provision in refuges is a further threat to refuge provision. When women move on, they will be entitled only to the single room rate of housing benefit.

I will never forget the Iraqi woman refugee in Slough, a qualified radiographer, who was slowly being made mad because she was so scared by living in a house, and sharing a kitchen and bathroom, with young men who had no respect for her religion or her privacy. We are about to do that to women who are leaving refuges.

Removing from the DNA database the samples of men who have been accused but not convicted of rape, when we know both that convictions are hard to secure and—

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I will, but the hon. Lady must understand that by intervening, she is reducing the time for other speakers.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will be very quick. Does the hon. Lady welcome the Government’s determination to open more rape crisis centres for women?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Absolutely. In order to make more time for other speakers, I cut the bit of my speech that I had written in which I welcomed that, and I cut other things as well. I have frequently praised the Government for putting on a secure basis the funding for rape crisis centres, which used to arrive under the previous Government but was utterly unpredictable. That is the one thing that the Government have done that will make women safer, and I welcome it.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady welcome Clare’s law?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I do, and I welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) in championing it on behalf of her constituent who was a victim. I am glad that it will be brought in. In a way, I would have liked the announcements that were made today at some reception in Downing street to be made in this debate. The Government should have told us here what they were going to do, which would have provided an opportunity to debate their plans in the international women’s day debate.

As I was saying, removing from the DNA database the samples of men who have been accused but not convicted of rape, when we know both that convictions are hard to secure and that rape is a serial crime, is irresponsible. Other public sector cuts, from railway stations to street lights, will make neighbourhoods more frightening for women.

Here in Britain, a separate theme has been identified for international women’s day—“Connecting girls, inspiring futures”. I really wish that we offered girls here in Britain a more inspiring future, but I am afraid that this generation of young women will probably be the first to do less well than their mothers.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the least inspiring things that we could do would be to leave a giant deficit for those girls to pay off with their future taxes?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

There are other ways to tackle the deficit than to target women and children. I do not think it right, on this day, to argue that it is right to do that. If we make the world more unequal, we make a sad future for our daughters. I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s work on, for example, pornography. I have been proud to support her campaign to enable mothers to protect their daughters and sons from pornography on the internet. There are things that we agree on, and we should celebrate them, but we should not use that celebration to paper over the risk that pay is becoming more unequal, opportunities are becoming fewer and women are becoming less safe. That is not a reason to celebrate on this international women’s day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

This has been a powerful debate, and many diverse points have been raised, ranging from sport to Afghanistan to women’s economic power. It will not be possible to address them all. When I introduced the debate, Government Members were provoked by my approach, yet during the debate we have proved that we are indeed tribal, but we are for the tribe of women. The overwhelming majority of contributions have shared a series of values that say that it is not good enough just to assume that a particular policy will meet the needs of women but that we actually need to examine things carefully. Such an approach was demonstrated, for example, in the intelligent analysis by the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) of the possible risks of trying to deal with forced marriage carelessly.

I am, in a way, therefore disappointed by the Minister’s summing up. Hon. Members would have been able to tell from my initial remarks that I profoundly disagreed with it, because she made the easy mistake of saying that when we have done something, we have achieved it—that is not the case, as we all know. We can be proud of some bits; I am glad that the Government have made some announcements—for example, those made today about tackling violence against women, which will include some improvements. That is great, but it is not good enough for us all to be satisfied with minor improvements and small changes, or with a system where, as unfortunately has happened in the argument about dealing with the deficit, women have tended to be the victims. Such a situation has occurred because the voices of women have not been around the table.

There are very many strong, intelligent and powerful women in this Chamber today. I say to all of them, whatever party they support and whatever side they are on, that they should make sure that the voices of women are heard and that they should analyse every policy that is put before them through the lens of the difference it will make to women. If a policy advances the cause of women, it advances the cause of the whole society. If a policy advances the cause of women, it promotes the welfare of children. If a policy advances the cause of women, we actually make a more civilised and better society in Britain today, and with that we will have an international women’s day truly to celebrate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of International Women’s Day.